"Don't ask, don't tell"

You certainly believe that I'm a lazy boy because I summarise the presentation of Hugo three weeks after. But I'm not...
His article -taking from Google News and dated from 14th October- talks about the attempt of the U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips to prevent the enforcement of the law nicknamed « Don't ask, don't tell ». This law says that gay and lesbian militaries have to hide their homosexuality from the other militaries. 14 000 militaries have been fired since 1993 because of this law.

Virginia Phillips, persuaded by many associations, considered that this law was unconstitutional because all Americans have the right to serve their country honorably and patriotically regardless of sexual orientation. This law denied the constitutional rights and freedoms.

Normally, the decision of the judge must end the law. But Barrack Obama wanted to end the law by an ordered way passing by the administration and an official congress vote. Hugo was optimistic and he said that the law was going to end. I wasn't like him.

The 20th of October, a Federal Appeals Court chose to temporaly suspend the decision of Virginia Phillips till the decision of the Appeals Court about the consitutionality of her decision. I was waiting for this decision (that's why I said in the beginning that I'm not a lazy boy!). It was the first attack against the decision of Virginia Phillips.

This monday (the first of November) the Federal Appeals Court acted to keep the military’s « don’t ask, don’t tell » policy in place. The Appeals Court considers that the judge bothered the administration which was tempting to prevent the law by a congress vote.

So, the law “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is likely to remain in place for the months or years it could take to decide an appeal, unless President Barack Obama manages to persuade Congress to repeal the statute. Because of the loosing mid-term election, it seems that this law will stay in place for a long, long time.

The first question of Hugo was to ask if it was fair for gay and lesbian militaries to hide their homosexuality. Everybody agreed with him in order to say that they should have the right to choose themselves if they want to hide or not their homosexuality. But if I was the Devil's advocate, I would say that they have to hide their homosexuality for their own security, in order to be integrate by the other militaries. In this way I can say too that homosexuality would disrupt the « masculine atmosphere » of the army. Don't worry: I'm not the Devil's advocate!

His second question was to ask if gays and lesbians were discriminated in our society. He says that in the legal point of view, in France, there is not real discrimination, but in people's mind there still are. I don't agree with him. In my opinion, in France, gays and lesbians are discriminated in people's mind and by the law. For example they have not the right to be married, or to have children whereas this is a fundamental human right.

Eventually, I agree with Hugo to say that there is an ambiguity of American society: homosexuals are tolerated, but only if nobody knows. But I just want to say that this law his just an example of this ambiguity. There are lots of ambiguities in the American society. So, the problem is not coming from the homosexuals but from the Amercian society itself.